In a mob fury, controversy-hit Assam Congress MLA Rumi Nath and her second husband Jakie Zakir were beaten up and injured in a hotel in the southern Karimganj town on Friday night.
The police rushed to the spot and, after providing initial medical treatment, escorted them to Ms. Nath’s MLA quarters in Guwahati in the night itself.
Superintendent of Police Pradip Pujari told The Hindu that the mob first shouted slogans, threw stones and then barged into hotel room. Ms. Nath and Mr. Zakir took shelter inside the toilet but the mob broke open the door, dragged them out and beat them up severely for quite some time.
“We have registered a case. A crime has been committed and those guilty will be arrested and action taken against them,” the SP said. The three personal security officers provided to the legislator would also be punished as they failed to protect her. The SP said some people had been expressing resentment over her second marriage.
It was on May 22 that Ms. Nath’s first husband Rakesh Singh lodged a First Information Report with the police alleging that his wife was kidnapped after she went missing the previous day. But Ms. Nath surfaced in Guwahati on June 2 and said she was not kidnapped and that she was away on a holiday trip to Agartala. Ending media speculation, she also announced that she and Mr. Zakir had been married, and that her papers for divorce with her first husband were ready.
Ms. Nath first hogged the media limelight two years ago when she, though a Bharatiya Janata Party MLA then, voted, along with three other BJP legislators, for the Congress’ Rajya Sabha candidates in defiance of the party whip. The BJP immediately expelled all the four MLAs.
In the 2011 polls, Ms. Nath won from Barkhola on Congress ticket.
